Endangered species protection in Ontario is under threat as the provincial government proposes Bill 5, repealing the Endangered Species Act in favor of weaker legislation. Host Andrew Lewin breaks down what these changes mean for biodiversity, habitat protection, and public accountability, and shares how Ontarians can respond through the Environmental Registry.
Climate action in Hawaii is taking a bold step forward with a new tourism climate fee aimed at offsetting ecological damage from visitors. Meanwhile, an ancient species—the frilled shark—has been spotted off the coast of Chile, raising fascinating questions about changing ocean ranges. Finally, tensions escalate between the U.S. and the International Seabed Authority over proposals to mine the deep sea, revealing global disagreements over governance of our ocean commons.
Links: Rollback of Environmental Regs: https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-endangered-species-act-repealed/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Environmental Defence Canada Bill-5: https://environmentaldefence.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Bill-5-V2-Backgrounder-May-2025.pdf
Frilled Shark in Chile: https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2025/04/19/pigment-disorder-found-in-deep-sea-shark/
Follow a career in conservation: https://www.conservation-careers.com/online-training/ Use the code SUFB to get 33% off courses and the careers program.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
What's up everybody? Welcome back to the
how to protect the
ocean podcast. Today, we're
going to be talking about four different
types of stories. You're
going to talk about a policy
change in my home province of Ontario. I
know it's not surrounded
by oceans, but we've got
a little bit of that connection to the
oceans. We're going to be
talking about a new policy
for tourists in Hawaii, a place that I
just went to and I
love. We're also going to be
(00:25):
talking about an interesting shark that's
popped up in Chile,
expanding its range. And then finally
to cap it off, we're going to be talking
about how the international seabed
authority has clapped
back to the US in terms of talking about
or even trying to do deep
sea mining. All that on today's
episode of the how to protect the ocean
podcast. Let's start the show. Trying
(00:50):
something new today.
Welcome back to another exciting episode
of the how to protect the
ocean podcast. I'm your host,
Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast
where you can find out how
to pull the I mess it up. It's
always messing me up. I'm just going to
continue going. I'm going to start all
over. Hey everybody,
welcome back to another exciting episode
of the how to protect the
ocean podcast. I'm your host,
Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where
(01:11):
you find out what's
happening with the ocean, how you can
speak up for the ocean and what you can
do to live for a better
ocean by taking action on today's
episode. We're going to be trying
something new. I am getting ready or
practicing to go live. Now,
this is something that I've been wanting
to do for a long time. I
even bought the software called
Ecamm. It's a great software. It takes a
little while to get used to and also
(01:32):
doing stuff live. I'm
used to recording this. You know, I went
from just doing audio to now
doing video podcasting and now
doing live video that will eventually
turn into the audio podcast
every once in a while and adding
some new stuff to the YouTube channel. So
this is going to be all new. I'm just
going to go in it and act like it's live.
(01:54):
So if I make a mistake, I make a mistake.
No starting over, no editing. It's just
going to go straight into it. I'm going
to try not to make any mistakes, but I
can't promise anything. So we're going to
get started with the show because this is
something that's really special to me.
This is something that I want to bring
you more information to you. We've got
four stories that I'm going to go through
and I want to make sure that we're going
(02:15):
through them nicely, but I'm going to
kind of quickly and quickly. I want to
kind of quicken the pace so it's not
going to take forever. So let's get to it
today. We're going to be talking about
four different things changing the
endangered species act in the province of
Ontario, my home province. I'm a little
miffed about this. This is pissing me off
quite a bit that we've seen this time and
time again. I know the federal government
(02:35):
in Canada tried to do this in the past. I
know the state of Florida has done this
in the past with manatees taking either
species off early or not listing them in
time and making sure that they're not
taking sure and just basically degrading
their habitat around them. We're going to
talk all about that. We're also going to
be talking about a new policy in Hawaii
about tourism. There's a climate tax
(02:56):
essentially that'll be interesting to see
how that's going to go ahead. But we have
a video from TikTok from a Chris a career
who is talking about it because she's
been working on that policy with her
partners for about five years and it's
finally going in. So congratulations to
her. So we'll talk. We'll hear from her.
We're also going to be talking about a
new article that Melissa Marquez wrote
(03:17):
for Forbes magazine talking about the
frill shark how it's showing up in Chile
and why that's important for its range.
We're going to talk about that. And of
course, the clap back. I say fights back
the International seabed authority fights
back on US deep sea mining and saying,
hey, you know what? You may not actually
be able to do this. So we're going to
talk all about that. But first we're
going to start it off changing the
(03:38):
endangered species act. This is something
where I just don't get it. It's just one
of those things where it happens every
time there's a conservative government.
That comes in. We see the fact that it's
it's it. They want to take an act that
stops or slows down economic growth and
by economic growth. I mean development.
There's a lot of things that are going on
(03:59):
in this article here on the narwhal at
narwhal.ca. It looks at how Ontario is
killing this endangered species act.
Here's what you need to know and it gives
you a whole thing. And I'm going to I'm
going to link to it in the show notes.
But this is something that's really
interesting because they kind
of snuck it in. It's Bill five.
And it's essentially it's going to make
it easier to build minds. It's going to
(04:20):
make it easier to build infrastructure
like a highway for 13. And the reason why
they're doing this is because they want
to build in green space and actually a
green zone that's been designated north
of Toronto called the green belt. And
that's been an important part of
preserving a lot of the ecosystem
activity that happens in wetlands around
Toronto, just north of Toronto and
(04:42):
through Toronto. You gotta remember
Toronto is a big city here in Canada.
It's made a lot of changes to its river
systems. A lot of times it's actually
it's actually buried its rivers as it
gets closer to the lake causing a lot of
problems in terms of ecosystem function.
But it also you know they they realize
this. They said you know what north of
Toronto we really have to start
(05:02):
protecting us. We're going to have this
green belt. It's a zone that you can't
build in. Well, that's what we thought.
Now it looks like they're going to try
and build it and try and put another
highway because if you live in Toronto or
you're near Toronto, you see the 401
which is the major highway
that goes through Toronto.
It's always busy. The gardener, which is
downtown Toronto. It's always busy.
(05:22):
There's this. It's always traffic around
all the highways have it. So they said,
you know what? We're going to build
another one, even though they have one
for seven. It's a toll highway that not
many people want to pay for. So it's
always open. It's very rarely that you
get you get traffic and then but now
nobody wants to pay for it because it's
expensive. So people are like, okay,
let's you know, governments like let's
make it for 13 north of the city to have
(05:46):
a lot of people go through.
There will it work. I don't know. There's
been a lot of scandal around it and now
they're trying to make it easier for them
to develop by taking away a lot of the
things that will slow them down in terms
of regulations. It'll just slow them down
to do that. And one of that is the
endangered species act. These are species
that have seen a like a very fast decline
(06:08):
in their population and they, you know,
they need specialized things. So they
need like to protect their homes.
They protect where they sleep to protect
where they eat to protect their habitat
that they actually use and also have
recovery plan. So I actually have a plan
for each of these species and each of the
populations and each of the areas where
(06:29):
they occur to make sure that they start
to grow in numbers for that population.
And so that's a very important part of
the species at risk or the endangered
species act. The there's a federal
species at risk act and that will also
protect it. But it's protect different
species at different levels. And of
course, province and
federal government have different
(06:49):
jurisdictions. So there have to have a
different act like an endangered species
act or species at risk act. So this is a
really interesting thing because here are
the changes to the acts. They want to
repeal. So essentially they're going to
repeal the endangered species act and
replace it with a species conservation
act. Now the shift of focus is from
recovery and stewardship to a balance
(07:11):
between conservation and economic
development. Now that sounds
normal. That sounds like actually that's
not that bad. You want to balance, you
know, the species protection with
economic development. The problem is, is
that's not how it works. So they want to
redefine under the species conservation
act what habitat means. So they're
actually narrowing it down. So
(07:33):
previously, habitat encompassed areas
essential for species life processes,
which, which, you know, such as like
feeding, breeding and migration, just
like I mentioned earlier. So the new
definition limits habitat
specifically to the dwelling places like
dens or nests. So this is usually online.
It's not aquatic species. We'll talk
(07:53):
about quite species in a bit. So it's
potentially excluding critical areas used
for forging and migration. This is a
really, I feel like it's a political way
of looking at how we're defining
protecting species, especially endangered
species. We are just saying, you know,
wherever they live, wherever they sleep,
(08:14):
that's what we're going to protect. But
we're not going to protect their
food sources. We're not going to protect
where they have to migrate if they have
to migrate over a certain period of time
or during certain seasons, we're just
going to protect where they sleep. And
that's it. And hopefully, that will work
out. This tells me that they just do not
care about these species. There's also a
shift in permits to registration. So the
(08:36):
current endangered species act requires
permits for activities that might harm
species at risk, or their habitats that
the specific permits and those are
really, really hard to get. But under the
new act, the species conservation act,
there's a registration first approach
allowing proponents to proceed with
activities after registering them online.
So without a prior environmental review.
(08:56):
So this change could expedite
development. So development of houses or
are like highways or infrastructure, but
raises concerns about reduced oversight.
So essentially, they just have to say,
I'm going to do this in this area. And
they're going to say, yeah, okay, you get
pre approved because you've already
planned to do this. It does not make
sense to protect
these endangered species.
Then, of course, there's these the
(09:18):
government discretion over a species
listing. So while the committee on the
status of species at risk in Ontario,
Cassaro will continue to assess species,
the final decision to list or deal a
species under the CSA, which is a species
conservation act is rest with the
provincial government. So the provincial
government decides, you know what, we're
actually not going to worry about that
(09:39):
because we really want this highway to go
through. So these salamanders that are in
the green belt, we're not going to worry about them.
We're going to just worry about we want
this highway to go through because you
know what with the scandal that they had
my buddy over here is going to stand to
make about $2 billion from this housing
project in the highways and all this kind
of stuff. And I want him to him or her to
(10:01):
benefit. And that's really what's going
to happen. So he allows more political
scandals to happen and less species at
risk protection. We're also going to
eliminate recovery of strategy. So
remember, I said that, you know, in the
endangered species act, you have a
recovery plan, which is really going to be really important. And you can go through that with us. But we're going to look at the, you know, healthcare there's a kind of a business plan in there. And we're going to look at, if you'll like, with us, it's going to be a business plan. And we're going to look at the, you know, a lot of the, what we're going to do next. It's going to be a business plan. A lot
important to have a recovery plan to make
sure that we know how
to monitor the species,
how to put it all together, and all of a
(10:22):
sudden now we're not
going to have a recovery plan.
That's just the way we're going to do it.
We're just not going to have this
recovery plan to aid the
recovery of the threatened
species.
It just makes no sense whatsoever.
There's exemptions for
federally protected species.
So species already protected under the
federal legislation, such as
migratory birds and aquatic
(10:42):
species would be excluded
from the CSA's provisions.
This aims to reduce regulatory
duplication, but may leave gaps in
protection on provincial
lands.
So in other words, if there is a species
at risk that's
registered with the federal
species at risk, but not in the
Endangered Species Act,
this province isn't going to
worry about it.
Ontario's not going to worry about it.
(11:03):
But when it's on provincial lands, they
have to worry about it and
they may just get overlooked.
So that's something
that they worry about.
So the creation of special economic
zones, this is going to
be an interesting one.
Bill five, which is the bill that's going
to change all this,
introduces the Special
Economic Zone Act of 2025, allowing the
government to designate
areas where certain provincial
(11:24):
regulations, including environmental
protections, may not apply.
This could facilitate development
projects, but raises
concerns about the protection or
the potential bypassing of
environmental safeguards.
In other words, if the government wants a
particular area to be developed, they're
going to get it developed because they're
just want it to be developed.
They don't care what
species at risk are there.
(11:44):
They're not going to care.
And this is the problem.
Here are the implications.
So environmental organizations, we have
the Environmental
Defense Fund, we have the David
Suzuki Foundation.
We have pretty much everything that you
can say, any type of protection.
So Wildlife Conservation Society, we have
all these different places that different
organizations that are hating this bill.
(12:05):
They are saying this is not good at all.
Eco justice as well.
Ontario Nature as well.
They've expressed strong opposition,
arguing that it
undermines species conservation or
species protection and prioritizes
economic development over
ecological sustainability.
Critics highlight that the bill could
lead to increased habitat
destruction and a decline
(12:26):
in biodiversity.
So now here's the thing is the public has
the opportunity to
provide feedback to the
proposed changes through the
environmental registry of
Ontario until May 17th, 2025.
So whether you live in Ontario or you do
not live in Ontario,
if you do not want to
see species at risk decline even more,
this is your chance to say something.
(12:48):
I'm going to put a link into the, uh,
like a, there's an
environmental registry listing
for the law.
So you can do that and
you can have your say.
And there's some, if you look at this,
uh, this org, this
organization, there's a lot
of organization.
I'm going to put a link to it where you
can actually find out
what you can do and what
you can say to your MPP or your ministry
(13:09):
of, uh, your was it
ministry of provincial
parliament.
You can actually say, Hey, you know what?
I don't like this at all.
I think this is awful.
You have like, they have to listen, they
have to listen to you.
And so the more people
speak up, the better it is.
So there are organizations like
environmental defense fund,
um, or yeah, the environmental
defense Alliance, I
think, or whatever it's called.
(13:29):
They are trying to get people to speak up
and this is your
chance to speak up not only
for the ocean, but this is
just for Ontario as well.
And for the great lakes and for anything
that is around in and
around Ontario, this
is going to be really important.
Okay.
So this is, this is something that we
have to, we have to really worry about.
Um, the big thing to do, like when you,
(13:49):
when you actually speak
out against it is to demand
retention of the endangered species act.
The one that was, that was put into place
in 2007, it was actually one of the, like
the world renowned, uh,
endangered species acts.
So this is something
that's really important.
So really under like emphasize that the
endangered species act, scientific
foundations and mandatory
recovery strategies are critical for
(14:11):
effective conservation.
You can highlight concerns
about habitat redefinition.
The fact that, look, arguing the
narrowing of the definition
of habitat to just the dens,
uh, where we'll leave, you know,
essential feeding, breeding
and migratory areas unprotected.
You can cite how this change weakens real
world protections of
real world protections
of the ground on the ground.
(14:32):
Um, and so, you know, also you can object
to the deregulation
via registration first
approach, which I talked about.
We can reject politicization of species
listings, which is
basically saying, look, if there's
a species that's in trouble and it's been
highlighted as being
in trouble and should
be listed or considered listed under the
endangered species act,
politicians may like, yeah, but
we really want to develop in that area.
(14:53):
So we don't really
care about the species.
That's going to really delay the process.
Um, and that's, that's,
that's going to be a real problem.
Now I wanted to know, I did a little bit
of in for, uh, of research on what has
happened in the past,
like real world, you know, things of
weakening in the endangered species act.
The United States actually weakened the U
S endangered species
act under, guess what?
(15:13):
The Trump era rollbacks in 2019, the U S
government rolled back key
provisions of the S A, including
allowing economic factors
and decisions to list species.
Have you noticed a pattern here?
Economic factors is a huge thing in, uh,
when we make these changes to the
endangered species acts, uh, they also
made it harder to designate critical
habitat and they removed automatic
(15:33):
protections for newly
listed threatened species.
So this is, that's not a good thing.
The impact was it led to the delays and
listing of several declining species,
such as the Wolverine and the great sage
grouse, despite a strong scientific
evidence showing that
they should be listed.
Also habitat development projects like
pipelines mining proceeded in areas
formerly under stronger federal
(15:54):
protection, especially in Western states
like Alaska and Utah.
So that was one of the examples and also
Ontario did some amendments in 2019 to
the endangered species act under bill
108, the Ford government, which is the
same government previously weakened the
endangered species act, um, by allowing
developers to pay into a fund instead of
protecting species on site.
(16:15):
So essentially you can destroy an area, a
habitat, but you had to pay into a fund
that may have gone into something that
was a different project.
That's a normal thing or
that's not a normal thing.
That's something that's happened before
with species at risk or
even just fish habitat.
When we look at federal regulations, they
also let the cabinet delay protections of
newly listed species.
Again, have you seen the, the, uh, the
(16:37):
pattern here and then they reduced the
independence of the cassera, which is
scientific committee, uh, that
designates these, uh, species.
So according to Ontario nature species,
like the woodland caribou and bats at
risk of extinction saw little meaningful
protection and the offsetting fund has
been criticized for lacking transparency,
surprise, surprise and effectiveness in
(16:58):
achieving conservation outcomes.
This also happened in
Australia and a lot of other places.
And so the common themes and delaying the
protections, weakening deaf habitat
definitions and scientific being
basically science being sidelined, which
is a lot of times happening when we talk
about, uh, you know, taking away a
rolling back environmental protections
(17:18):
for, uh, for basically increasing the,
the potential of development, the
potential for building the economy and,
and, and now in Canada and Ontario,
especially we have seen a big focus and a
big shift on environmental protection.
Um, you know, being independent, growing
our economy and how
do we grow our economy?
We develop and we build and we expand and
(17:40):
all this kind of stuff.
And unfortunately, this is
what I was worried about.
Um, you know, it's all happened.
It has to happen at the consequence of
environment basically,
which, which really sucks.
In this case, it's endangered species and
their habitat, their
critical habitat, if you will.
So that is the story for this just
getting started on here.
I know we're taking a little bit longer.
(18:01):
This is going to be a
longer episode, but that's okay.
Let's get into the next episode.
Now this is something or the next story.
Now this is something that is interesting
because, um, we're
going to be talking about
a new policy, actually a good policy
that's going into Hawaii.
It's got a video it's on TikTok is from
Chris or Cabara friend of the podcast.
She's been on the podcast before.
She has an organization called future
(18:22):
swell where she partners
with different people to
talk, uh, to do conservation, whether it
be coral restoration
within Hawaii, whether
it be talking about or creating
storytelling opportunities for their
partners or even doing
storytelling for certain projects.
It's a great organization.
Future swell.
Check that out.
Um, but also here is, I'm just going to
(18:43):
hit up the scene here.
We're going to be talking about what is
important and why it's been
important to Carissa to get
this.
And we're going to be, she talks a little
bit about it, uh,
more about the completion
of five years of work.
So give me a sec here.
I'm going to cue it up and take a listen.
Hopefully you can hear this.
No fricking idea how
good it feels to do this.
This is my 2025 impact calendar.
(19:09):
Pass transformational policy.
You have no fricking
idea how good it feels.
So I'm just going to, I'm
just going to pause it here.
So she doesn't tell a lot about it.
She goes into a little
bit more detail here.
I think she's enjoying the fact that
(19:30):
she's been able to do it.
Um, delusion.
A nice, a nice trend on
TikTok using, using a sound.
I love Chris's video is really great, but
she basically, you
know, is proud of herself
of working with partners for just past
landmark climate
legislation and first visitor, visitor
green fee in the nation
(19:51):
after five years of organizing.
So essentially she goes into a little bit
more detail here
where she said, uh, oh no,
sorry, it goes, go back to the other, uh,
Andrew, go back to
the other video and just
going to pause it.
Uh, so basically, uh, it says here, so
for every tourist in
Hawaii to Hawaii who books
a $400 hotel room per night, $3 of that
(20:11):
will go to climate solutions.
Still a small portion, but $3 of that
will go to common decision.
Doesn't look like
it's a tax on top of it.
Um, but it does look like
it's going to be included.
We'll go towards climate solutions
because of our tourism
industry that adds up to a hundred
million dollars a
year for climate forever.
So this is a policy that's really
important for Hawaii.
If you think about it, there's so many
(20:33):
people that traveled to
a place like Hawaii for a
lot of different reasons.
Hawaii is a gorgeous place.
Uh, I just visited a couple of, but a
couple of months ago now
feels like it was forever
ago on the Island of Hawaii, Oahu, where
Carissa lives and it's
beautiful, but you've
got to think about, you know, the travel
there, the amount of planes that go
there, the amount of boats, the amount of
gas that's being used, uh, the amount of
(20:54):
people that are just going in there and
be honest, like kind of ruining some of
the essence of the culture and the
environment as they are just being there.
And you need to have somewhere or a pot
of money and funds to be able to, uh,
help and make sure that the corals are in
good shape, make sure that there's no
cumulative effect, like development,
(21:15):
tourism in terms of
people like hitting the coral.
So, yeah, I think that's a really good question.
I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. You know, there's a lot of people that
don't know that they're not allowed to
wear a certain sunscreen.
And you know, I mean, I think it's really good to have a person who's
wearing a certain sunscreen.
You know, if you're wearing a bad
sunscreen, you can kill the corals or you
can damage the corals further.
So, uh, having a fun that helps restore
not only the marine environment, but the
(21:36):
land environment for the people of Hawaii
who are inviting people to come.
They're not saying that they don't want
people to come or most of
them don't want people to come.
But you know, there's a, there's a cost
at that and that's to the environment
which they live in and
survive off of and they need.
And so having this, this, this fund or
this climate solutions cost will be
(21:58):
really important for the island of
Hawaii, the islands of Hawaii.
And I think that's, that's a, that's
something that I feel is going to be,
we're going to see that
more and more locally.
Niagara Falls is a huge tourist spot.
They actually have a tourist tax and not
a lot of people like to
pay it, but we pay it.
And because they need to, you know,
revitalize Niagara Falls, they need to
(22:19):
make sure that it's, they can continue
to, um, you know, basically the tourists
who enjoy it will have to pay for it.
So that enjoyment and pay for that
revitalization, pay for restoration and
all that kind of stuff and making sure
that it's protected.
So that it was a quick, I just wanted to
go through that because that's a quick
thing because I think it's really
important that we, we look at that.
Now let's go to the next thing. And this
(22:40):
is just, I'm going to go quickly over
this because I don't want to do too long
of an episode, but frill shark.
This I saw today as I was looking at it
and I think it's something that's of
interest because Melissa Marquez, a good
friend of mine, she is a contributor for
Forbes magazine among that.
She's an author. She's a social media
influencer. She's been on shark week, a
(23:02):
TV personality, national geographic.
She's done a lot of things, even taking a
bite from a crocodile on the leg. I've
told that story a number of times.
I still can't believe that actually
happened. However, we are going to be
talking about something
that's really important here.
A bit of a discovery really, uh, the
first male frilled shark found in Chilean
waters. This is kind of a cool.
(23:22):
So you can read it here. I'll put the
link in the show notes. Um, but it just
basically says, you know, the, this,
this, this frilled shark
was first described in 1884.
Uh, it's one of the deepest sea
creatures. Uh, it looks like a, a, a,
like it swam straight out of prehistoric
times. It says here. And, and to be
honest, it, it scares a lot
of people when they see it.
It's, it's a very long shark. It almost
(23:44):
looks like a big snake. Um, it's got like
these white eyes, which is kind of
interesting. Um, and it's got, you can
really see the frilled gills here. And I
think it's a, it's a really interesting
species, but they haven't been seen many,
uh, despite wide, but scattered
distribution, the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Very few frilled sharks have ever been
observed or collected fewer than 40
(24:04):
specimens actually have been documented
since it is for, it was first described
making each new find
scientifically valuable.
So in a recent study, researchers
reported a rare discovery, a male frilled
shark caught off Chilo island is in
Southern Chile. Uh, not only is it the
first time first confirmed male of the
species recorded in Chilean waters.
(24:25):
It also extends the known range of the
frilled shark in the South, the Southeast
Pacific by roughly 530 miles. So 850
kilometers, uh, southward. So that's
really cool. Um, and so this is just, it
goes on to talk about, you know, some of the, the, the depth.
So it was actually at a depth of about
500 meters. Um, so that's 1640 feet for
(24:46):
my American friends. Um, and so it, it,
they were caught in 2015. They were
actually granted access to look at in
2023. Hence why it's taken so long to
publish on it. Um, in total 48 body
measures were taken to compare this male
to the previously known female specimen
that was collected as well as filled
sharks documented in other parts of the
world. Now, so there's been a couple of
(25:07):
different things. So the two Chilean species shared no significant morphological
features, but the researchers did find
some anatomical variation when comparing
to them to specimens from other regions.
So they noticed that the Chilean sharks
had longer heads and smaller pelvic fins
relative to their total body length.
These differences fall within known range
(25:27):
of variation of the species, but could
also be influenced by the sexual
dimorphism or the preservation method. So
essentially the sexual dimorphism is that
males are different size than females. This has been a very interesting process.
And females, this happens in a lot of
fish in the ocean. So in males, for
example, the pelvic fins can be
proportionally larger than the females,
but still the sample size is too small to
really draw any, any firm conclusions.
(25:48):
And the research team noted that further
studies would be needed and more
specimens would be needed to determine
whether these differences are typical of
the regions filled shark population. Now,
what's interesting too is that when you
have such a length and in the geography,
like a difference in geography of where
these are collected and maybe even just a
difference in the morphology.
If there are enough species to tell maybe
(26:09):
this becomes two different species, we
don't know. We can't even tell right now,
this is a complete assumption, a complete
guess, but that'd be something that I
would be interested in seeing what's
going to happen. But they need more
specimens. I just thought this was kind
of cool because it always makes the news.
If there's a video of a frilled shark, it
always does well on the internet. If you
(26:30):
look at this, it looks really weird. A
lot of people call it a monster. It's in
the deep sea. It doesn't come up often when it does come up usually.
It's not alive and that's just the way it
goes. But I thought it was interesting. I
thought I want to share that with you.
Hope you enjoy it. I'd love to hear your
thoughts. Let me know in the comments
below. But let's get back to the rest of
the show. So here we go. We're looking,
(26:51):
you know, I covered this on Wednesday's
episode where I talked to Dr. Andrew
Thaler. We talked about the International
Seabed Authority and how the metal company, which is a Canadian company decided, hey, you know, you can do this.
I'm going to actually talk to the US
because there's a guy, President Donald
Trump, who might want to be interested in
(27:11):
deep sea mining in the US waters and
maybe he'll sponsor me to go to the high
seas. Talked a lot about that. Check out
that episode with Andrew Thaler. But
there was a there was really two big
things that came out of that interview
that I got from that interview. Essentially one that they could go ahead and do deep sea mining within the US waters.
(27:34):
Going outside of those waters and going
into the high seas, that's going to be
something different because they are not
part of unclos, which is the law of the
sea. And so that means they are basically
disobeying that law. There's no
enforcement of that law. But what might happen as Andrew Thaler mentioned, he's like, hey, you know what?If they start to disobey that law, what's to say that China does like start to disobeying that water?
(27:55):
And it just starts a really bad
precedence and that's something that we
don't want to do. So there is a little
bit more to the story. It was developing.
I saw this right before I recorded and I want to talk about it today. So we are going to talk about it's going back to Chris's tiktok. And I think it's pretty interesting because I'm going to let you listen to the story.
But it's something that I feel is going
(28:18):
to be something that we need to we need
to talk about. So I'm just going to hook
it up or set it up here. So just give me
a second. And here we go.
(29:29):
That's why it's such a big deal that
Trump issued the
executive order because he went
around this huge international governing
body and they clapped back.
The first way they clapped back is they
put this FAQ on the
International Seabed Authority
website and look at it says, "Due to
recent developments with
the U.S. Executive Order
and the metal company and with the
corporation that wants to buy the DC."
This is actually really good for any of
(29:50):
you who want to dive
more into the issue, but
then they issued a
direct statement to the U.S.
And it is so spicy. It basically just
reminds the U.S. that no
state can exercise any rights
over the seabed and the mineral resources
that are found within
it because it is the
common heritage of all mankind.
(30:10):
And then she goes on to say that this
executive order could
destabilize the entire global
system of ocean governance. That's what
Trump's trying to do.
Now, this is an attack on global
agreements, geopolitical
relationships, and it's also
going against the fact that all of these
countries have agreed that the
seabed is the common heritage
of all humankind. And so that cannot be
(30:32):
changed just because one
president or dictator decides
what it should be. So, yeah, the backpack
was strong and team was easy.
Yeah. OK, so there's a bit.
OK, so this is an interesting thing here.
I'm just going to
turn down the music here,
trying to get some back-bone music to go
with the vibes. This is
an interesting development.
(30:53):
So the ISA actually comes out as as Chris
says and says, hey, you know what? If you
do this, if you go like if you go beyond
your exclusive economic zone, you go into
international waters into the high seas,
you are going to take
away everything that people
have agreed for decades, you know,
multiple decades that all
these countries, which is
(31:14):
hard to get everybody to agree, but all
these countries who have
signed on, even the ones
that haven't signed on have agreed that
this area is kind of off marks other than
a couple of other, you know, couple of
players like that do some
illegal activities, which is another
problem. But once countries start to do
this on purpose, like Donald Trump is
trying to do with the
U.S. and saying, hey, you know what? If
(31:34):
we want to deep sea mine in the high
seas, nobody's really going to stop us.
True. Nobody's really
going to stop them. But what it's going
to do is when they want something done or
not done in the high seas
or something else done in
another U.N. proposition, then maybe
those countries like, well, if you don't
abide by it, why should we abide by it?
And to be honest, they're kind of right.
This is these international agreements,
(31:55):
although there's no police force to
enforce them, they're kind of enforced on
themselves where, you
know, if some if a country does
something that goes against it, they get
shamed. You know, for a long time, the
International Whale Commission, the IWC,
you know, banned whaling.
And when the Japanese started whaling in
international waters, they were, you
know, they were they were embarrassed,
(32:15):
basically, they were they were told like,
hey, what are you doing?
You're going against all these
agreements. You're doing this, you're
doing that. And eventually, you know,
with some pressure from some nonprofit
organizations like Sea Shepherd and
others, they eventually went back and
said, you know what?
This is too much of a headache. We're
putting too many people in danger for a
number of reasons and of our own of our
own citizens. So we're going to going to
(32:36):
wail in our own exclusive economic zone.
When you start to end, the sanctions can
happen if they start going into high seas
and so forth. And so that could be a huge
problem for countries. And, you know,
we've never really seen this from a
country like the U.S. before.
Obviously, the president doesn't really
care about international agreements. He
just cares for what he thinks is good for
(32:59):
the U.S., which a lot of people disagree,
especially in this case. And so it's
ruffling a lot of
feathers around the world.
It's not making a huge deal because
there's so many other things that, you
know, like tariffs and other things that
people are worried about. But it is going
to be a problem if if, you know, the
president decides, you know, we're just
going to go ahead and do it anyway.
And as Dr. Andrew Thaler said in my
(33:20):
interview, the metal company that's
Canadian company that's doing this,
that's kind of perpetrate or like kind of
pushing this is it could be almost out of
money and needs to do this deep sea mine.
They've been doing this for 10 years.
They've been doing this for a long time.
And, you know, they are a company that
wants to move quickly. They're a company
that wants to be able to deep sea mine.
And I get it from a business perspective,
(33:40):
but also from a perspective of we don't
know what's going to happen to the deep
sea if we stop mining or if we start
mining. And that is a dangerous
situation. If we screw up the deep sea,
we could be screwing up a lot of long
term processes that we just have no idea
and understanding of from a scientific
level and from a nature level and what
we're doing to the balance of nature.
(34:01):
The ocean covers over 70% of our planet.
The deep sea is a big portion of that.
And we know virtually nothing about it.
So this is it could be very dangerous in
the way that we play. But again, the fact
that there's a big push economically to
develop this is always the driving force
behind trying to mess up the environment.
(34:21):
I wish there's a point where we could
actually figure out how to develop
economically and develop and protect
environmentally. I think if we could meld
those two together, we can really do some
good. But it doesn't
seem to happen all the time.
But regardless, that's what's been
happening. The ISA is like, hey, you know
what? We need to say something about
this. We're not going to take this lying
down, which I'm glad. I'm glad they're
(34:42):
putting it out into in
the open into the public.
Other countries are obviously part of
this international seabed authority. And
this is something that we need to talk
about from a world perspective. This is
very dangerous in terms of not only just
just deep sea mining, but just
governance,
international governance in itself.
So that's what we're going to that's how
we're going to end off the show. Really
(35:04):
interesting thing here. So I'm just going
to get my last little closer here. I
think it's this one here. There we go.
That's it for today's episode.
You know, I want to thank you so much for
the patience. I know this is a 35 minute
episode plus. And so I'm going to divide
these up into little chunks over the
weekend so you can take a look or maybe
over the day, you can take a look at each
(35:25):
of these individual stories. But I want
to thank you so much. I'd love to hear
what you think of this format. If you
would attend live, when would you attend?
I'd love to hear that. Hit me up in the
comments below. If you're watching this
on YouTube, and if you want to hit me up,
you can do so at how to protect the ocean
on Instagram. Just DM me. And if you go
to the web, our
website, speak up for blue.com.
For slash contact, you can fill out the
(35:47):
form. You can get right access into to
me. It goes right to my personal email
once you fill out the form. And I would
love to hear you. If you want to hear the
audio version and you're not not into the
visual version, which is fine. That's
where I started on this. That's where
I'll probably always be posting. And this
there will be an audio version of this.
This is these lives as well. So you're
not going to miss any kind of these these
(36:07):
episodes. The reason why I'm doing the
lives is because there's so many stories that are coming out lately that I want to cover.
Them as soon as possible. And I don't
want to wait like a couple of days before
it gets going. So that's why I'm doing
these lives. But if you want to go, if
you want to search up the podcast is how
to protect the ocean on your favorite
podcast app. I want to thank you so much
for joining me on today's episode of the
how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm
(36:28):
your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great
day. We'll talk to you next
time and happy conservation.
What's up everybody? Welcome back to the
how to protect the
ocean podcast. Today, we're
going to be talking about four different
types of stories. You're
going to talk about a policy
change in my home province of Ontario. I
know it's not surrounded
by oceans, but we've got
a little bit of that connection to the
oceans. We're going to be
talking about a new policy
for tourists in Hawaii, a place that I
just went to and I
love. We're also going to be
(00:25):
talking about an interesting shark that's
popped up in Chile,
expanding its range. And then finally
to cap it off, we're going to be talking
about how the international seabed
authority has clapped
back to the US in terms of talking about
or even trying to do deep
sea mining. All that on today's
episode of the how to protect the ocean
podcast. Let's start the show. Trying
(00:50):
something new today.
Welcome back to another exciting episode
of the how to protect the
ocean podcast. I'm your host,
Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast
where you can find out how
to pull the I mess it up. It's
always messing me up. I'm just going to
continue going. I'm going to start all
over. Hey everybody,
welcome back to another exciting episode
of the how to protect the
ocean podcast. I'm your host,
Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where
(01:11):
you find out what's
happening with the ocean, how you can
speak up for the ocean and what you can
do to live for a better
ocean by taking action on today's
episode. We're going to be trying
something new. I am getting ready or
practicing to go live. Now,
this is something that I've been wanting
to do for a long time. I
even bought the software called
Ecamm. It's a great software. It takes a
little while to get used to and also
(01:32):
doing stuff live. I'm
used to recording this. You know, I went
from just doing audio to now
doing video podcasting and now
doing live video that will eventually
turn into the audio podcast
every once in a while and adding
some new stuff to the YouTube channel. So
this is going to be all new. I'm just
going to go in it and act like it's live.
(01:54):
So if I make a mistake, I make a mistake.
No starting over, no editing. It's just
going to go straight into it. I'm going
to try not to make any mistakes, but I
can't promise anything. So we're going to
get started with the show because this is
something that's really special to me.
This is something that I want to bring
you more information to you. We've got
four stories that I'm going to go through
and I want to make sure that we're going
(02:15):
through them nicely, but I'm going to
kind of quickly and quickly. I want to
kind of quicken the pace so it's not
going to take forever. So let's get to it
today. We're going to be talking about
four different things changing the
endangered species act in the province of
Ontario, my home province. I'm a little
miffed about this. This is pissing me off
quite a bit that we've seen this time and
time again. I know the federal government
(02:35):
in Canada tried to do this in the past. I
know the state of Florida has done this
in the past with manatees taking either
species off early or not listing them in
time and making sure that they're not
taking sure and just basically degrading
their habitat around them. We're going to
talk all about that. We're also going to
be talking about a new policy in Hawaii
about tourism. There's a climate tax
(02:56):
essentially that'll be interesting to see
how that's going to go ahead. But we have
a video from TikTok from a Chris a career
who is talking about it because she's
been working on that policy with her
partners for about five years and it's
finally going in. So congratulations to
her. So we'll talk. We'll hear from her.
We're also going to be talking about a
new article that Melissa Marquez wrote
(03:17):
for Forbes magazine talking about the
frill shark how it's showing up in Chile
and why that's important for its range.
We're going to talk about that. And of
course, the clap back. I say fights back
the International seabed authority fights
back on US deep sea mining and saying,
hey, you know what? You may not actually
be able to do this. So we're going to
talk all about that. But first we're
going to start it off changing the
(03:38):
endangered species act. This is something
where I just don't get it. It's just one
of those things where it happens every
time there's a conservative government.
That comes in. We see the fact that it's
it's it. They want to take an act that
stops or slows down economic growth and
by economic growth. I mean development.
There's a lot of things that are going on
(03:59):
in this article here on the narwhal at
narwhal.ca. It looks at how Ontario is
killing this endangered species act.
Here's what you need to know and it gives
you a whole thing. And I'm going to I'm
going to link to it in the show notes.
But this is something that's really
interesting because they kind
of snuck it in. It's Bill five.
And it's essentially it's going to make
it easier to build minds. It's going to
(04:20):
make it easier to build infrastructure
like a highway for 13. And the reason why
they're doing this is because they want
to build in green space and actually a
green zone that's been designated north
of Toronto called the green belt. And
that's been an important part of
preserving a lot of the ecosystem
activity that happens in wetlands around
Toronto, just north of Toronto and
(04:42):
through Toronto. You gotta remember
Toronto is a big city here in Canada.
It's made a lot of changes to its river
systems. A lot of times it's actually
it's actually buried its rivers as it
gets closer to the lake causing a lot of
problems in terms of ecosystem function.
But it also you know they they realize
this. They said you know what north of
Toronto we really have to start
(05:02):
protecting us. We're going to have this
green belt. It's a zone that you can't
build in. Well, that's what we thought.
Now it looks like they're going to try
and build it and try and put another
highway because if you live in Toronto or
you're near Toronto, you see the 401
which is the major highway
that goes through Toronto.
It's always busy. The gardener, which is
downtown Toronto. It's always busy.
(05:22):
There's this. It's always traffic around
all the highways have it. So they said,
you know what? We're going to build
another one, even though they have one
for seven. It's a toll highway that not
many people want to pay for. So it's
always open. It's very rarely that you
get you get traffic and then but now
nobody wants to pay for it because it's
expensive. So people are like, okay,
let's you know, governments like let's
make it for 13 north of the city to have
(05:46):
a lot of people go through.
There will it work. I don't know. There's
been a lot of scandal around it and now
they're trying to make it easier for them
to develop by taking away a lot of the
things that will slow them down in terms
of regulations. It'll just slow them down
to do that. And one of that is the
endangered species act. These are species
that have seen a like a very fast decline
(06:08):
in their population and they, you know,
they need specialized things. So they
need like to protect their homes.
They protect where they sleep to protect
where they eat to protect their habitat
that they actually use and also have
recovery plan. So I actually have a plan
for each of these species and each of the
populations and each of the areas where
(06:29):
they occur to make sure that they start
to grow in numbers for that population.
And so that's a very important part of
the species at risk or the endangered
species act. The there's a federal
species at risk act and that will also
protect it. But it's protect different
species at different levels. And of
course, province and
federal government have different
(06:49):
jurisdictions. So there have to have a
different act like an endangered species
act or species at risk act. So this is a
really interesting thing because here are
the changes to the acts. They want to
repeal. So essentially they're going to
repeal the endangered species act and
replace it with a species conservation
act. Now the shift of focus is from
recovery and stewardship to a balance
(07:11):
between conservation and economic
development. Now that sounds
normal. That sounds like actually that's
not that bad. You want to balance, you
know, the species protection with
economic development. The problem is, is
that's not how it works. So they want to
redefine under the species conservation
act what habitat means. So they're
actually narrowing it down. So
(07:33):
previously, habitat encompassed areas
essential for species life processes,
which, which, you know, such as like
feeding, breeding and migration, just
like I mentioned earlier. So the new
definition limits habitat
specifically to the dwelling places like
dens or nests. So this is usually online.
It's not aquatic species. We'll talk
(07:53):
about quite species in a bit. So it's
potentially excluding critical areas used
for forging and migration. This is a
really, I feel like it's a political way
of looking at how we're defining
protecting species, especially endangered
species. We are just saying, you know,
wherever they live, wherever they sleep,
(08:14):
that's what we're going to protect. But
we're not going to protect their
food sources. We're not going to protect
where they have to migrate if they have
to migrate over a certain period of time
or during certain seasons, we're just
going to protect where they sleep. And
that's it. And hopefully, that will work
out. This tells me that they just do not
care about these species. There's also a
shift in permits to registration. So the
(08:36):
current endangered species act requires
permits for activities that might harm
species at risk, or their habitats that
the specific permits and those are
really, really hard to get. But under the
new act, the species conservation act,
there's a registration first approach
allowing proponents to proceed with
activities after registering them online.
So without a prior environmental review.
(08:56):
So this change could expedite
development. So development of houses or
are like highways or infrastructure, but
raises concerns about reduced oversight.
So essentially, they just have to say,
I'm going to do this in this area. And
they're going to say, yeah, okay, you get
pre approved because you've already
planned to do this. It does not make
sense to protect
these endangered species.
Then, of course, there's these the
(09:18):
government discretion over a species
listing. So while the committee on the
status of species at risk in Ontario,
Cassaro will continue to assess species,
the final decision to list or deal a
species under the CSA, which is a species
conservation act is rest with the
provincial government. So the provincial
government decides, you know what, we're
actually not going to worry about that
(09:39):
because we really want this highway to go
through. So these salamanders that are in
the green belt, we're not going to worry about them.
We're going to just worry about we want
this highway to go through because you
know what with the scandal that they had
my buddy over here is going to stand to
make about $2 billion from this housing
project in the highways and all this kind
of stuff. And I want him to him or her to
(10:01):
benefit. And that's really what's going
to happen. So he allows more political
scandals to happen and less species at
risk protection. We're also going to
eliminate recovery of strategy. So
remember, I said that, you know, in the
endangered species act, you have a
recovery plan, which is really going to be really important. And you can go through that with us. But we're going to look at the, you know, healthcare there's a kind of a business plan in there. And we're going to look at, if you'll like, with us, it's going to be a business plan. And we're going to look at the, you know, a lot of the, what we're going to do next. It's going to be a business plan. A lot
important to have a recovery plan to make
sure that we know how
to monitor the species,
how to put it all together, and all of a
(10:22):
sudden now we're not
going to have a recovery plan.
That's just the way we're going to do it.
We're just not going to have this
recovery plan to aid the
recovery of the threatened
species.
It just makes no sense whatsoever.
There's exemptions for
federally protected species.
So species already protected under the
federal legislation, such as
migratory birds and aquatic
(10:42):
species would be excluded
from the CSA's provisions.
This aims to reduce regulatory
duplication, but may leave gaps in
protection on provincial
lands.
So in other words, if there is a species
at risk that's
registered with the federal
species at risk, but not in the
Endangered Species Act,
this province isn't going to
worry about it.
Ontario's not going to worry about it.
(11:03):
But when it's on provincial lands, they
have to worry about it and
they may just get overlooked.
So that's something
that they worry about.
So the creation of special economic
zones, this is going to
be an interesting one.
Bill five, which is the bill that's going
to change all this,
introduces the Special
Economic Zone Act of 2025, allowing the
government to designate
areas where certain provincial
(11:24):
regulations, including environmental
protections, may not apply.
This could facilitate development
projects, but raises
concerns about the protection or
the potential bypassing of
environmental safeguards.
In other words, if the government wants a
particular area to be developed, they're
going to get it developed because they're
just want it to be developed.
They don't care what
species at risk are there.
(11:44):
They're not going to care.
And this is the problem.
Here are the implications.
So environmental organizations, we have
the Environmental
Defense Fund, we have the David
Suzuki Foundation.
We have pretty much everything that you
can say, any type of protection.
So Wildlife Conservation Society, we have
all these different places that different
organizations that are hating this bill.
(12:05):
They are saying this is not good at all.
Eco justice as well.
Ontario Nature as well.
They've expressed strong opposition,
arguing that it
undermines species conservation or
species protection and prioritizes
economic development over
ecological sustainability.
Critics highlight that the bill could
lead to increased habitat
destruction and a decline
(12:26):
in biodiversity.
So now here's the thing is the public has
the opportunity to
provide feedback to the
proposed changes through the
environmental registry of
Ontario until May 17th, 2025.
So whether you live in Ontario or you do
not live in Ontario,
if you do not want to
see species at risk decline even more,
this is your chance to say something.
(12:48):
I'm going to put a link into the, uh,
like a, there's an
environmental registry listing
for the law.
So you can do that and
you can have your say.
And there's some, if you look at this,
uh, this org, this
organization, there's a lot
of organization.
I'm going to put a link to it where you
can actually find out
what you can do and what
you can say to your MPP or your ministry
(13:09):
of, uh, your was it
ministry of provincial
parliament.
You can actually say, Hey, you know what?
I don't like this at all.
I think this is awful.
You have like, they have to listen, they
have to listen to you.
And so the more people
speak up, the better it is.
So there are organizations like
environmental defense fund,
um, or yeah, the environmental
defense Alliance, I
think, or whatever it's called.
(13:29):
They are trying to get people to speak up
and this is your
chance to speak up not only
for the ocean, but this is
just for Ontario as well.
And for the great lakes and for anything
that is around in and
around Ontario, this
is going to be really important.
Okay.
So this is, this is something that we
have to, we have to really worry about.
Um, the big thing to do, like when you,
(13:49):
when you actually speak
out against it is to demand
retention of the endangered species act.
The one that was, that was put into place
in 2007, it was actually one of the, like
the world renowned, uh,
endangered species acts.
So this is something
that's really important.
So really under like emphasize that the
endangered species act, scientific
foundations and mandatory
recovery strategies are critical for
(14:11):
effective conservation.
You can highlight concerns
about habitat redefinition.
The fact that, look, arguing the
narrowing of the definition
of habitat to just the dens,
uh, where we'll leave, you know,
essential feeding, breeding
and migratory areas unprotected.
You can cite how this change weakens real
world protections of
real world protections
of the ground on the ground.
(14:32):
Um, and so, you know, also you can object
to the deregulation
via registration first
approach, which I talked about.
We can reject politicization of species
listings, which is
basically saying, look, if there's
a species that's in trouble and it's been
highlighted as being
in trouble and should
be listed or considered listed under the
endangered species act,
politicians may like, yeah, but
we really want to develop in that area.
(14:53):
So we don't really
care about the species.
That's going to really delay the process.
Um, and that's, that's,
that's going to be a real problem.
Now I wanted to know, I did a little bit
of in for, uh, of research on what has
happened in the past,
like real world, you know, things of
weakening in the endangered species act.
The United States actually weakened the U
S endangered species
act under, guess what?
(15:13):
The Trump era rollbacks in 2019, the U S
government rolled back key
provisions of the S A, including
allowing economic factors
and decisions to list species.
Have you noticed a pattern here?
Economic factors is a huge thing in, uh,
when we make these changes to the
endangered species acts, uh, they also
made it harder to designate critical
habitat and they removed automatic
(15:33):
protections for newly
listed threatened species.
So this is, that's not a good thing.
The impact was it led to the delays and
listing of several declining species,
such as the Wolverine and the great sage
grouse, despite a strong scientific
evidence showing that
they should be listed.
Also habitat development projects like
pipelines mining proceeded in areas
formerly under stronger federal
(15:54):
protection, especially in Western states
like Alaska and Utah.
So that was one of the examples and also
Ontario did some amendments in 2019 to
the endangered species act under bill
108, the Ford government, which is the
same government previously weakened the
endangered species act, um, by allowing
developers to pay into a fund instead of
protecting species on site.
(16:15):
So essentially you can destroy an area, a
habitat, but you had to pay into a fund
that may have gone into something that
was a different project.
That's a normal thing or
that's not a normal thing.
That's something that's happened before
with species at risk or
even just fish habitat.
When we look at federal regulations, they
also let the cabinet delay protections of
newly listed species.
Again, have you seen the, the, uh, the
(16:37):
pattern here and then they reduced the
independence of the cassera, which is
scientific committee, uh, that
designates these, uh, species.
So according to Ontario nature species,
like the woodland caribou and bats at
risk of extinction saw little meaningful
protection and the offsetting fund has
been criticized for lacking transparency,
surprise, surprise and effectiveness in
(16:58):
achieving conservation outcomes.
This also happened in
Australia and a lot of other places.
And so the common themes and delaying the
protections, weakening deaf habitat
definitions and scientific being
basically science being sidelined, which
is a lot of times happening when we talk
about, uh, you know, taking away a
rolling back environmental protections
(17:18):
for, uh, for basically increasing the,
the potential of development, the
potential for building the economy and,
and, and now in Canada and Ontario,
especially we have seen a big focus and a
big shift on environmental protection.
Um, you know, being independent, growing
our economy and how
do we grow our economy?
We develop and we build and we expand and
(17:40):
all this kind of stuff.
And unfortunately, this is
what I was worried about.
Um, you know, it's all happened.
It has to happen at the consequence of
environment basically,
which, which really sucks.
In this case, it's endangered species and
their habitat, their
critical habitat, if you will.
So that is the story for this just
getting started on here.
I know we're taking a little bit longer.
(18:01):
This is going to be a
longer episode, but that's okay.
Let's get into the next episode.
Now this is something or the next story.
Now this is something that is interesting
because, um, we're
going to be talking about
a new policy, actually a good policy
that's going into Hawaii.
It's got a video it's on TikTok is from
Chris or Cabara friend of the podcast.
She's been on the podcast before.
She has an organization called future
(18:22):
swell where she partners
with different people to
talk, uh, to do conservation, whether it
be coral restoration
within Hawaii, whether
it be talking about or creating
storytelling opportunities for their
partners or even doing
storytelling for certain projects.
It's a great organization.
Future swell.
Check that out.
Um, but also here is, I'm just going to
(18:43):
hit up the scene here.
We're going to be talking about what is
important and why it's been
important to Carissa to get
this.
And we're going to be, she talks a little
bit about it, uh,
more about the completion
of five years of work.
So give me a sec here.
I'm going to cue it up and take a listen.
Hopefully you can hear this.
No fricking idea how
good it feels to do this.
This is my 2025 impact calendar.
(19:09):
Pass transformational policy.
You have no fricking
idea how good it feels.
So I'm just going to, I'm
just going to pause it here.
So she doesn't tell a lot about it.
She goes into a little
bit more detail here.
I think she's enjoying the fact that
(19:30):
she's been able to do it.
Um, delusion.
A nice, a nice trend on
TikTok using, using a sound.
I love Chris's video is really great, but
she basically, you
know, is proud of herself
of working with partners for just past
landmark climate
legislation and first visitor, visitor
green fee in the nation
(19:51):
after five years of organizing.
So essentially she goes into a little bit
more detail here
where she said, uh, oh no,
sorry, it goes, go back to the other, uh,
Andrew, go back to
the other video and just
going to pause it.
Uh, so basically, uh, it says here, so
for every tourist in
Hawaii to Hawaii who books
a $400 hotel room per night, $3 of that
(20:11):
will go to climate solutions.
Still a small portion, but $3 of that
will go to common decision.
Doesn't look like
it's a tax on top of it.
Um, but it does look like
it's going to be included.
We'll go towards climate solutions
because of our tourism
industry that adds up to a hundred
million dollars a
year for climate forever.
So this is a policy that's really
important for Hawaii.
If you think about it, there's so many
(20:33):
people that traveled to
a place like Hawaii for a
lot of different reasons.
Hawaii is a gorgeous place.
Uh, I just visited a couple of, but a
couple of months ago now
feels like it was forever
ago on the Island of Hawaii, Oahu, where
Carissa lives and it's
beautiful, but you've
got to think about, you know, the travel
there, the amount of planes that go
there, the amount of boats, the amount of
gas that's being used, uh, the amount of
(20:54):
people that are just going in there and
be honest, like kind of ruining some of
the essence of the culture and the
environment as they are just being there.
And you need to have somewhere or a pot
of money and funds to be able to, uh,
help and make sure that the corals are in
good shape, make sure that there's no
cumulative effect, like development,
(21:15):
tourism in terms of
people like hitting the coral.
So, yeah, I think that's a really good question.
I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. You know, there's a lot of people that
don't know that they're not allowed to
wear a certain sunscreen.
And you know, I mean, I think it's really good to have a person who's
wearing a certain sunscreen.
You know, if you're wearing a bad
sunscreen, you can kill the corals or you
can damage the corals further.
So, uh, having a fun that helps restore
not only the marine environment, but the
(21:36):
land environment for the people of Hawaii
who are inviting people to come.
They're not saying that they don't want
people to come or most of
them don't want people to come.
But you know, there's a, there's a cost
at that and that's to the environment
which they live in and
survive off of and they need.
And so having this, this, this fund or
this climate solutions cost will be
(21:58):
really important for the island of
Hawaii, the islands of Hawaii.
And I think that's, that's a, that's
something that I feel is going to be,
we're going to see that
more and more locally.
Niagara Falls is a huge tourist spot.
They actually have a tourist tax and not
a lot of people like to
pay it, but we pay it.
And because they need to, you know,
revitalize Niagara Falls, they need to
(22:19):
make sure that it's, they can continue
to, um, you know, basically the tourists
who enjoy it will have to pay for it.
So that enjoyment and pay for that
revitalization, pay for restoration and
all that kind of stuff and making sure
that it's protected.
So that it was a quick, I just wanted to
go through that because that's a quick
thing because I think it's really
important that we, we look at that.
Now let's go to the next thing. And this
(22:40):
is just, I'm going to go quickly over
this because I don't want to do too long
of an episode, but frill shark.
This I saw today as I was looking at it
and I think it's something that's of
interest because Melissa Marquez, a good
friend of mine, she is a contributor for
Forbes magazine among that.
She's an author. She's a social media
influencer. She's been on shark week, a
(23:02):
TV personality, national geographic.
She's done a lot of things, even taking a
bite from a crocodile on the leg. I've
told that story a number of times.
I still can't believe that actually
happened. However, we are going to be
talking about something
that's really important here.
A bit of a discovery really, uh, the
first male frilled shark found in Chilean
waters. This is kind of a cool.
(23:22):
So you can read it here. I'll put the
link in the show notes. Um, but it just
basically says, you know, the, this,
this, this frilled shark
was first described in 1884.
Uh, it's one of the deepest sea
creatures. Uh, it looks like a, a, a,
like it swam straight out of prehistoric
times. It says here. And, and to be
honest, it, it scares a lot
of people when they see it.
It's, it's a very long shark. It almost
(23:44):
looks like a big snake. Um, it's got like
these white eyes, which is kind of
interesting. Um, and it's got, you can
really see the frilled gills here. And I
think it's a, it's a really interesting
species, but they haven't been seen many,
uh, despite wide, but scattered
distribution, the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Very few frilled sharks have ever been
observed or collected fewer than 40
(24:04):
specimens actually have been documented
since it is for, it was first described
making each new find
scientifically valuable.
So in a recent study, researchers
reported a rare discovery, a male frilled
shark caught off Chilo island is in
Southern Chile. Uh, not only is it the
first time first confirmed male of the
species recorded in Chilean waters.
(24:25):
It also extends the known range of the
frilled shark in the South, the Southeast
Pacific by roughly 530 miles. So 850
kilometers, uh, southward. So that's
really cool. Um, and so this is just, it
goes on to talk about, you know, some of the, the, the depth.
So it was actually at a depth of about
500 meters. Um, so that's 1640 feet for
(24:46):
my American friends. Um, and so it, it,
they were caught in 2015. They were
actually granted access to look at in
2023. Hence why it's taken so long to
publish on it. Um, in total 48 body
measures were taken to compare this male
to the previously known female specimen
that was collected as well as filled
sharks documented in other parts of the
world. Now, so there's been a couple of
(25:07):
different things. So the two Chilean species shared no significant morphological
features, but the researchers did find
some anatomical variation when comparing
to them to specimens from other regions.
So they noticed that the Chilean sharks
had longer heads and smaller pelvic fins
relative to their total body length.
These differences fall within known range
(25:27):
of variation of the species, but could
also be influenced by the sexual
dimorphism or the preservation method. So
essentially the sexual dimorphism is that
males are different size than females. This has been a very interesting process.
And females, this happens in a lot of
fish in the ocean. So in males, for
example, the pelvic fins can be
proportionally larger than the females,
but still the sample size is too small to
really draw any, any firm conclusions.
(25:48):
And the research team noted that further
studies would be needed and more
specimens would be needed to determine
whether these differences are typical of
the regions filled shark population. Now,
what's interesting too is that when you
have such a length and in the geography,
like a difference in geography of where
these are collected and maybe even just a
difference in the morphology.
If there are enough species to tell maybe
(26:09):
this becomes two different species, we
don't know. We can't even tell right now,
this is a complete assumption, a complete
guess, but that'd be something that I
would be interested in seeing what's
going to happen. But they need more
specimens. I just thought this was kind
of cool because it always makes the news.
If there's a video of a frilled shark, it
always does well on the internet. If you
(26:30):
look at this, it looks really weird. A
lot of people call it a monster. It's in
the deep sea. It doesn't come up often when it does come up usually.
It's not alive and that's just the way it
goes. But I thought it was interesting. I
thought I want to share that with you.
Hope you enjoy it. I'd love to hear your
thoughts. Let me know in the comments
below. But let's get back to the rest of
the show. So here we go. We're looking,
(26:51):
you know, I covered this on Wednesday's
episode where I talked to Dr. Andrew
Thaler. We talked about the International
Seabed Authority and how the metal company, which is a Canadian company decided, hey, you know, you can do this.
I'm going to actually talk to the US
because there's a guy, President Donald
Trump, who might want to be interested in
(27:11):
deep sea mining in the US waters and
maybe he'll sponsor me to go to the high
seas. Talked a lot about that. Check out
that episode with Andrew Thaler. But
there was a there was really two big
things that came out of that interview
that I got from that interview. Essentially one that they could go ahead and do deep sea mining within the US waters.
(27:34):
Going outside of those waters and going
into the high seas, that's going to be
something different because they are not
part of unclos, which is the law of the
sea. And so that means they are basically
disobeying that law. There's no
enforcement of that law. But what might happen as Andrew Thaler mentioned, he's like, hey, you know what?If they start to disobey that law, what's to say that China does like start to disobeying that water?
(27:55):
And it just starts a really bad
precedence and that's something that we
don't want to do. So there is a little
bit more to the story. It was developing.
I saw this right before I recorded and I want to talk about it today. So we are going to talk about it's going back to Chris's tiktok. And I think it's pretty interesting because I'm going to let you listen to the story.
But it's something that I feel is going
(28:18):
to be something that we need to we need
to talk about. So I'm just going to hook
it up or set it up here. So just give me
a second. And here we go.
(29:29):
That's why it's such a big deal that
Trump issued the
executive order because he went
around this huge international governing
body and they clapped back.
The first way they clapped back is they
put this FAQ on the
International Seabed Authority
website and look at it says, "Due to
recent developments with
the U.S. Executive Order
and the metal company and with the
corporation that wants to buy the DC."
This is actually really good for any of
(29:50):
you who want to dive
more into the issue, but
then they issued a
direct statement to the U.S.
And it is so spicy. It basically just
reminds the U.S. that no
state can exercise any rights
over the seabed and the mineral resources
that are found within
it because it is the
common heritage of all mankind.
(30:10):
And then she goes on to say that this
executive order could
destabilize the entire global
system of ocean governance. That's what
Trump's trying to do.
Now, this is an attack on global
agreements, geopolitical
relationships, and it's also
going against the fact that all of these
countries have agreed that the
seabed is the common heritage
of all humankind. And so that cannot be
(30:32):
changed just because one
president or dictator decides
what it should be. So, yeah, the backpack
was strong and team was easy.
Yeah. OK, so there's a bit.
OK, so this is an interesting thing here.
I'm just going to
turn down the music here,
trying to get some back-bone music to go
with the vibes. This is
an interesting development.
(30:53):
So the ISA actually comes out as as Chris
says and says, hey, you know what? If you
do this, if you go like if you go beyond
your exclusive economic zone, you go into
international waters into the high seas,
you are going to take
away everything that people
have agreed for decades, you know,
multiple decades that all
these countries, which is
(31:14):
hard to get everybody to agree, but all
these countries who have
signed on, even the ones
that haven't signed on have agreed that
this area is kind of off marks other than
a couple of other, you know, couple of
players like that do some
illegal activities, which is another
problem. But once countries start to do
this on purpose, like Donald Trump is
trying to do with the
U.S. and saying, hey, you know what? If
(31:34):
we want to deep sea mine in the high
seas, nobody's really going to stop us.
True. Nobody's really
going to stop them. But what it's going
to do is when they want something done or
not done in the high seas
or something else done in
another U.N. proposition, then maybe
those countries like, well, if you don't
abide by it, why should we abide by it?
And to be honest, they're kind of right.
This is these international agreements,
(31:55):
although there's no police force to
enforce them, they're kind of enforced on
themselves where, you
know, if some if a country does
something that goes against it, they get
shamed. You know, for a long time, the
International Whale Commission, the IWC,
you know, banned whaling.
And when the Japanese started whaling in
international waters, they were, you
know, they were they were embarrassed,
(32:15):
basically, they were they were told like,
hey, what are you doing?
You're going against all these
agreements. You're doing this, you're
doing that. And eventually, you know,
with some pressure from some nonprofit
organizations like Sea Shepherd and
others, they eventually went back and
said, you know what?
This is too much of a headache. We're
putting too many people in danger for a
number of reasons and of our own of our
own citizens. So we're going to going to
(32:36):
wail in our own exclusive economic zone.
When you start to end, the sanctions can
happen if they start going into high seas
and so forth. And so that could be a huge
problem for countries. And, you know,
we've never really seen this from a
country like the U.S. before.
Obviously, the president doesn't really
care about international agreements. He
just cares for what he thinks is good for
(32:59):
the U.S., which a lot of people disagree,
especially in this case. And so it's
ruffling a lot of
feathers around the world.
It's not making a huge deal because
there's so many other things that, you
know, like tariffs and other things that
people are worried about. But it is going
to be a problem if if, you know, the
president decides, you know, we're just
going to go ahead and do it anyway.
And as Dr. Andrew Thaler said in my
(33:20):
interview, the metal company that's
Canadian company that's doing this,
that's kind of perpetrate or like kind of
pushing this is it could be almost out of
money and needs to do this deep sea mine.
They've been doing this for 10 years.
They've been doing this for a long time.
And, you know, they are a company that
wants to move quickly. They're a company
that wants to be able to deep sea mine.
And I get it from a business perspective,
(33:40):
but also from a perspective of we don't
know what's going to happen to the deep
sea if we stop mining or if we start
mining. And that is a dangerous
situation. If we screw up the deep sea,
we could be screwing up a lot of long
term processes that we just have no idea
and understanding of from a scientific
level and from a nature level and what
we're doing to the balance of nature.
(34:01):
The ocean covers over 70% of our planet.
The deep sea is a big portion of that.
And we know virtually nothing about it.
So this is it could be very dangerous in
the way that we play. But again, the fact
that there's a big push economically to
develop this is always the driving force
behind trying to mess up the environment.
(34:21):
I wish there's a point where we could
actually figure out how to develop
economically and develop and protect
environmentally. I think if we could meld
those two together, we can really do some
good. But it doesn't
seem to happen all the time.
But regardless, that's what's been
happening. The ISA is like, hey, you know
what? We need to say something about
this. We're not going to take this lying
down, which I'm glad. I'm glad they're
(34:42):
putting it out into in
the open into the public.
Other countries are obviously part of
this international seabed authority. And
this is something that we need to talk
about from a world perspective. This is
very dangerous in terms of not only just
just deep sea mining, but just
governance,
international governance in itself.
So that's what we're going to that's how
we're going to end off the show. Really
(35:04):
interesting thing here. So I'm just going
to get my last little closer here. I
think it's this one here. There we go.
That's it for today's episode.
You know, I want to thank you so much for
the patience. I know this is a 35 minute
episode plus. And so I'm going to divide
these up into little chunks over the
weekend so you can take a look or maybe
over the day, you can take a look at each
(35:25):
of these individual stories. But I want
to thank you so much. I'd love to hear
what you think of this format. If you
would attend live, when would you attend?
I'd love to hear that. Hit me up in the
comments below. If you're watching this
on YouTube, and if you want to hit me up,
you can do so at how to protect the ocean
on Instagram. Just DM me. And if you go
to the web, our
website, speak up for blue.com.
For slash contact, you can fill out the
(35:47):
form. You can get right access into to
me. It goes right to my personal email
once you fill out the form. And I would
love to hear you. If you want to hear the
audio version and you're not not into the
visual version, which is fine. That's
where I started on this. That's where
I'll probably always be posting. And this
there will be an audio version of this.
This is these lives as well. So you're
not going to miss any kind of these these
(36:07):
episodes. The reason why I'm doing the
lives is because there's so many stories that are coming out lately that I want to cover.
Them as soon as possible. And I don't
want to wait like a couple of days before
it gets going. So that's why I'm doing
these lives. But if you want to go, if
you want to search up the podcast is how
to protect the ocean on your favorite
podcast app. I want to thank you so much
for joining me on today's episode of the
how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm
(36:28):
your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great
day. We'll talk to you next
time and happy conservation.
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